- City:
- Chicago, IL
- Site Type:
- Parks and Recreation, Paths and Trails, Landscaping and Tree Planting, Shops and Auxiliary Buildings
- New Deal Agencies:
- Works Progress Administration (WPA), Work Relief Programs
- Started:
- 1936
- Completed:
- 1937
- Quality of Information:
- Good
- Marked:
- Unknown
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
In 1936, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) pursued a variety of improvements at Chicago’s historic Jackson Park.
“The WPA [went] to town in the park,” the Jackson Park Advisory Council opines. WPA work crews built “comfort stations at the golf driving range,” a “children’s playground,” and “a maintenance building and an overpass at 63rd Street.” The WPA “shortened lagoon shoreline and did other rehabilitation work on Wooded Island and at the Japanese Garden. The 1888 ladies comfort station was rehabilitated.” Moreover, golf course “inlet bridges and the Perennial Garden” were installed. “As part of the WPA work, E.V. Buchsman design[ed] a new Shelter (‘Iowa’) building…” The concession facilities were opened in 1937.
The WPA’s work at Jackson Park can still be seen today.
Source notes
“Jackson Park Timeline,” Jackson Park Advisory Council. https://www.jacksonparkadvisorycouncil.org/history-2/
Site originally submitted by Gray Brechin on June 7, 2022.
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